An essay on the Comparison of two poems dealing with intense emotions

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Introduction

An essay on the Comparison of two poems dealing with intense emotions In my essay I aim to compare the similarities and state the differences between two poems, Sylvia Plath's, 'Daddy' and Emily Dickinson's, 'I Felt a Funeral in my Brain.' These two poems deal with intense emotions and extreme cases of anger from the writer's own real life experiences. Sylvia Plath had an extremely traumatic childhood as her Father, Otto Plath, a German professor, died when she was only nine years old, and has always had to live with that. The emotions eventually took their toll on Plath and she committed suicide only a few months after writing 'Daddy'. Dickinson wrote her poems often under periods of extreme psychological distress, she spent most of her life isolated from the rest of the world, as she feared social situations. Plath's 'Daddy' and Dickinson's 'I Felt a Funeral in my Brain' share a similar mood and tone. Both sounding very sad and depressed, also a sense of anger stands out. Dickinson's title 'I Felt a Funeral in my Brain' already gives the reader a sense that the poem is a very sad one as a funeral is not a happy occasion, and is associated with death and unhappiness. Also the title is a metaphorical one, as the 'funeral' is not actually happening but is just in her mind, suggesting also that the poem is very sad and depressing. ...read more.

Middle

Maybe she was very erratic when wrote the poem and also very angry, she was not in enough control to make proper sense and use proper English. The sense of being tipped over the edge also show's in 'Kept beating - beating - till I thought/ My Mind was going numb-' the sense off something keep on repeating in your mind is enough to drive you mad, however Dickinson seems to have a constant drum beat in her mind. It's beginning to drive her mad and maybe she cannot take it any more. The dashes in the quotation are extremely effective, not only do they draw emphasis to the word but also slow the sentence down drawing an even greater emphasis towards the word. If anything a pause occurs and you think for that moment of what you have just read and draws you further into the poem and the emotions involved. I feel this technique works very well and is also used in Plath's 'Daddy' but just not as much. Plath's tone seems to be very childish, the word daddy often used by very young children, it's also maybe what Plath used to call him when she was young. The childish language suggests that she still remembers it like it was yesterday and she also still relives her childhood and what she used to do with her dad. ...read more.

Conclusion

Plath uses metaphors to describe the racial superiority of the Germans over the Jews and anyone else they despised. 'The boot in the face, the brute' it sounds as if someone has been extremely disrespectful, maybe she is suggesting that she's just been kicked in the face when her father died, and the mark has always been there and always will be there. This 'brute' is her father and that is who left this print in her face. 'The vampire who said he was you', the vampire is the metaphor and describes someone as someone who lives off of your blood and is a very evil thing. So what she is saying is that there was an evil person in her life that tried to take the place of her father. Maybe that person lived of Plath's emotions. Both the beginnings of each poem have similarities both start with very sombre and depressing moods with clear and vivid imagery, and they contain true emotions that can be felt by the reader. The first stanza of 'Daddy' gives you a clear image of Plath being trapped inside this tight suffocating shoe, while Dickinson's gives a very clear image of a sad depressing funeral. However the endings are not in the slightest similar, Plath's ends very furiously calling her dad a bastard, 'Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through' shows her intense emotions and extreme furiosity towards her father in the final stanza, it is also a very accusing stanza. 'They are ...read more.

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